Beads put new spin on global industry

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The northern challenge to the world’s washing machine manufacturers is being made on several fronts (Kathryn Hopkins writes). Xeros, a spin-off from the University of Leeds, has developed a machine that uses polymer beads instead of water to wash clothes.

This helps to save 80 per cent of the water, 50 per cent of the energy and 50 per cent of the detergent of a traditional “aqueous” machine.

Xeros is commercialising technology developed at the University of Leeds by Stephen Burkinshaw, a polymer chemist, and recently sold its commercial “bead-cleaning” washing machines, made in China, to White Rose Laundries, Jeeves